News & Blues 3/24

Vanity Follies

After authorities in Birmingham, Ala., informed Scottie Roberson,
38, he owed the city more than $19,000 for unpaid parking tickets, the
Huntsville resident explained he has been to Birmingham only once in
the past five years. “Whenever I call, nobody seems to want to help
me,” Roberson told The Birmingham News. “One woman said not to
worry about it because they didn’t have the manpower to come arrest
me.” After a year of receiving notices, he finally heard from city
officials that the tickets were issued by mistake because his vanity
plate is XXXXXXXX, which is what parking enforcement officers enter on
citation forms for illegally parked vehicles without license plates.

After a Welsh newspaper published a mug shot of Matthew Maynard, 23,
wanted by police investigating a house burglary, the fugitive sent the
paper a better likeness of himself standing in front of a police van. The South Wales Evening Post
obligingly printed it on the front page. The police thanked Maynard,
saying, “Everyone in Swansea will know what he looks like now.”

 Improbable Causes

David Kelbaugh, 23, rammed his car into a hot dog stand in Cary,
N.C., after the vendor refused his demand to sell him a hot dog and
drink for $1.

Claudia De La Rosa notified Miami International Airport that a bomb
was aboard an American Airlines flight to Honduras, according to
investigators, so that her boss, who was running late, wouldn’t miss
his flight.

A fire that gutted the garage of a home in Damonte Ranch, Nev.,
destroying two vehicles and most of the roof and attic area, started,
investigators told The Reno Gazette-Journal, while an occupant of the house was examining a flare gun to see if it was loaded. It was and discharged, igniting the fire.

Rules Are Rules

Michigan authorities warned Lisa Snyder she faces a $1,000 fine and
jail time for watching her neighbor’s three children until their school
bus comes. Snyder told WZZM-TV News the bus arrives 15 to 40 minutes
after the neighbors need to be at work. She said the Department of
Human Services contacted her to say it had received a complaint she was
operating an illegal child-care home and needed a license. A DHA
official said the agency was only complying with state law.

After authorities in Indiana’s Vermillion County arrested Sally
Harpold, her police mug shot ran on the front page of her local
newspaper with an article entitled, “17 Arrested in Drug Sweep.” The
grandmother of three was charged because she bought two bottles of
decongestant cold medicine for family members that totaled 3.6 grams.
State law limits purchases of medications containing ephedrine and
pseudoephedrine, which are used to make methamphetamine, to 3.0 grams
per week. The Clinton Tribune-Star reported authorities
regularly check pharmacy records and arrest anyone who exceeds the
limit because, Vigo County Sheriff Jon Marcel said, the law was enacted
“for the good of everyone.”

Touch of Class

A new Internet auction site aims to help down-on-their-luck
millionaires by discreetly facilitating sales and trades of luxury
assets, ranging from art and antiques to commercial properties,
businesses and foreclosed homes, “so they don’t have to deal with the
shame and or embarrassment of downgrade,” Quintin Thompson, co-founder
of BillionaireXchange, told Reuters. “I would say that in the United
States market, that’s probably the majority of the types of the
transactions that we’re seeing right now.” Thompson said the
Miami-based company, which completed a 10-month test phase before its
official launching in November, requires prospective members to have at
least $2 million in verifiable net worth. He added it already has
26,000 multimillionaire members and “nearly a dozen” billionaires,
among them professional athletes and A-list actors.